The Carbon Trust and the Business Network for Offshore Wind, the US-based offshore wind supply chain organisation, have agreed to collaborate on supporting the development of the offshore wind sector in North America.
The organisations have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), which details activities that the Carbon Trust and the Business Network for Offshore Wind will focus on over the next year to support and accelerate the deployment of offshore wind in the U.S.
Initial areas of interest will include offshore wind measurement and increasing understanding of met-ocean conditions to de-risk potential offshore wind farm sites in U.S waters.
Offshore wind presents an enormous opportunity for the U.S. to develop a low carbon energy source, create employment opportunities and increase energy security, according to the Carbon Trust. The offshore wind sector is expected to grow quickly over the next decade, boosted by a predicted USD 300 billion investment that will add an approximate 10GW to the nation’s current wind energy capacity.
“Partnering with the Carbon Trust expands the technical capacity and expertise of the Network,” said Liz Burdock , Executive Director of the Network.
“We look forward to working with them to develop solutions for removing barriers, accelerate U.S. commercial scale offshore wind development, and to directly undertake R&D projects aimed at lowering the costs of offshore wind in the U.S.”
The Carbon Trust will bring over 15 years of technology and industry expertise from the European wind sector, most notably, learnings from the world-leading collaborative research, development and deployment programme, the Offshore Wind Accelerator (OWA), which has been reducing the cost of energy from offshore wind since 2008. Through the OWA, the Carbon Trust has created a framework which enables competing developers to co-invest in a programme of innovation that benefits the industry as a whole, working directly with innovators to bring cost cutting solutions to market.
Jan Matthiesen, Director of Innovation at the Carbon Trust, said: “We are very pleased to announce the formalisation of our relationship with The Business Network for Offshore Wind to support the development of the offshore wind industry in the U.S. This is a strong partnership, bringing together the Network’s local expertise with Carbon Trust’s strong track record of achieving cost reduction in offshore wind, which is well timed to support the U.S.’s recently publicised National Offshore Wind Strategy”.